1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image log recording system for recording job attributes including a user who executes a job by a digital multi-function machine or a printer and a date and time of the job execution in association with an image, a control method therefor, and a storage medium storing a control program for executing the control method, and more particularly to an image log recording system characterized by an image log collecting technique, a control method therefor, and a storage medium storing a control program for executing the control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, with widespread use of printers and digital multi-function machines, it has become easier to perform printing, copying, and transmission of originals. This has improved the userfriendliness of the apparatuses, but at the same time, a new problem has occurred that printing, copying, or transmission of confidential documents can cause information leakage.
To prevent this information leakage, there has been proposed an image log recording system in which all pieces of image data are stored in a storage device when printing, copying, facsimile transmission, or e-mail transmission is performed (see e.g. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2000-172720). With the proposed system, it is possible to check the stored image log when information leakage occurs, to thereby track which printer or digital multi-function machine output the data, and when, where and how the data was output.
A description will be given of an example of the configuration of the above-mentioned image log recording system.
The image log recording system is comprised of digital multi-function machines and print servers for primarily recording image logs, and a database for collecting and storing image logs, and an image processing server disposed between the digital multi-function machines and the print servers, and the database, as required.
In each digital multi-function machine or print server, when a job, such as printing, copying, facsimile transmission, or e-mail transmission, is executed, an image as the processed contents of the job is recorded together with job attributes including a job executor, execution date and time, and an execution device.
The recorded image and the job attributes (hereinafter referred to as “the image log”) are transferred to the image processing server at a time scheduled by an administrator in a manner asynchronous to the execution of the job, and are deleted from the digital multi-function machine or the print server upon completion of the transfer. When receiving the image log, the image processing server performs OCR processing and conversion of the image into a format suitable for storage, as required, and then transfers the image log to the database. These processes are executed asynchronously. The database cumulatively stores image logs.
Further, the digital multi-functions machine and the print servers are each capable of monitoring an HDD thereof and transferring an image log to the image processing server, regardless of a schedule, when the capacity of an area available for image log recording becomes smaller than a predetermined value.
However, the number of jobs to be executed in the digital multi-function machines and the print servers is not constant, and hence when numerous jobs are executed within a short time, numerous image logs are cumulatively stored in the image processing server, which can make it impossible for the image processing server to receive more image logs.
In addition, since the conventional image processing server is configured to receive all image logs transferred by the digital multi-function machines and the print servers, the recording area of the image processing server becomes short, which makes it impossible to receive the image processing server. As a result, numerous image logs can be left stored in some digital multi-function machines and print servers.
For this reason, if a digital multi-function machine or a print server continues job execution, no more image logs can be recorded, and therefore the digital multi-function machine or the print server has no choice but to permit a job to be executed without log recording or to inhibit execution of the job.